woensdag 28 maart 2012

Barack Obama went to South Korea and met with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev. Huddled tête-à-tête with Medvedev, when he thought nobody was listening he told Medvedev the he would be able to sell out U.S. security interests and allies in Europe on the missile defense issue once he had his reelection in the bag. The purpose: he’d like the Russians to shut up and stop criticizing him because he needs his Russian “reset” to appear valid until then.

Fortunately for American voters, Obama was oblivious to the active microphone that recorded and broadcast his every word.

Even more fortunately, the Republicans were not asleep at the switch on Russia, as they usually are. Mitt Romney pounced. The Republican presumptive nominee for president stated of Russia:

This is without question our number one geopolitical foe, they fight for every cause for the world’s worst actors. The idea that he has more flexibility in mind for Russia is very, very troubling indeed.

Romney got it exactly right. Now, he must make sure to finish what he has started.

He should remind U.S. voters that one important reason their gasoline prices are soaring is Russia’s determined effort to support dictatorship in the Middle East. Every time Russia speaks out in support of rogue regimes, it makes the oil markets think protracted war rather than peaceful democratic transition is likely. That makes them nervous, and prices skyrocket.

And if the “world’s worst actors” happen to kill a few Americans with terrorism, so much the better as far as Vladimir Putin is concerned.

Romney should remind U.S. voters that, though Obama may not know it even though Medvedev told him so in so many words, Russia isn’t ruled by its “president” and never has been. Ever since the late 1990s, it’s been ruled by a proud KGB spy who spent his entire life learning how to hate and destroy America. A man who believes the collapse of the USSR was a tragedy, who has brought back the Soviet national anthem, who rigs elections and murders or jails political opponents.